Novarg declared the worst virus ever
It only crawled onto the Internet on Monday and is still growing, but at least one security firm is ready to crown the Novarg virus as the worst ever, The Globe and Mail reports.
Finnish security software company F-Secure made the coronation late Wednesday, declaring Novarg -- also known as MyDoom -- the fastest-spreading worm ever and "the worst e-mail worm incident in virus history".
F-Secure estimated that the worm was accounting for 20 per cent to 30 per cent of worldwide e-mail traffic Wednesday, putting it well ahead of previous nasties, such as the SoBig.F worm.
Other security companies had evaluations almost as dire. MessageLabs, which screens e-mail, said it had intercepted more than 3.4 million copies of Novarg, which infected one 1 of every 12 messages at its peak. That compares with a total of 33 million infections and a peak rate of 1 in 17 for SoBig.F. Novarg had already climbed to No. 5 on MessageLabs' list of the all-time most active viruses.
An offshoot of the Novarg worm surfaced Wednesday but did not appear to be spreading nearly as quickly as the original. |